In a season of running clocks and one-sided romps, Timothy Cole II went to his head coach at Raines and asked about having his moment.
The Vikings hadn’t needed Cole to do any sort of heroes work during a dominant season of football, but Donovan Masline had all the confidence in the world that his senior quarterback would deliver.
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The Vikings scored on a 10-yard touchdown pass from Cole to Tadarius Washington with 10 seconds to play as Raines won in a 23-22 epic at Pitbull Stadium against the hometown and nationally ranked Northwestern Bulls.
It’s the fourth state championship in program history, joining titles won by Welton Coffey (1997) and Deran Wiley (2017-18).
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“He talked about being a legendary moment,” Masline said. “This was his legendary moment.”
It was a championship a year in the making. Raines (14-0) used the humility of a 41-0 loss to Northwestern last year as motivation for this year’s revenge tour and it paid off. Week by week, Raines took out its frustrations on opponents who had no shot at keeping pace with the Vikings. They were laser focused on winning and redemption and they did it with brute force and dominance.
Consider the debt paid and the mission complete.
“The way we fought, you know, it wasn’t easy. Last year, you know, everybody knows what happened,” Cole said. “So, we wanted to come in this coming this year with the vengeance and with that excitement. To go down how we did and come back and fight how we did, it was amazing.”
Raines was at its very best late, courtesy of Cole and Washington. Masline said that Cole approached him during a season of Raines blowouts and asked if he would have an opportunity to do the heavy lifting in a do-or-die situation.
“I said, ‘hey, Coach Mas, I haven’t been in a situation where I had to go down and put the team on my back,” Cole said. “And what better opportunity than to do it in the state championship game.”
Cole marched Raines down the field with poise, converting a fourth-and-10 with an 11-yard pass to Washington that kept the hopes alive. One play later, Cole went back to Washington on a short pass from the right side of the field to the left, and Washington barreled his way past a couple defenders and into the left corner of the end zone for a 17-yard touchdown. Washington shrugged off one tackler and leveled another at the goal line.
Masline said he was confident that the playcall to Washington was the right one.
“Knowing he got confidence in me helps me have confidence,” Washington said. “I mean, he believes in me so I have to believe in myself. Caught the ball. Made a play. Scored.”
Cole had just put Raines in front with a 9-yard touchdown run with 2:30 to go to give the Vikings a 17-16 edge. But the Bulls answered in two plays, with Neiman Lawrence finding Nicholas Lennear with no one Raines player around him. It went for 62 yards and sapped the electricity from the Vikings, putting them down 22-17 with 1:55 to play.
Cole’s go-ahead score was set up by an interception by Geterius Brown at the Northwestern 43 with just over five minutes to play.
The Vikings were plagued by turnovers before finally scratching out something on defense of their own. Midway through the third quarter, Northwestern was knocking on the door of the Raines end zone and dialed up a pass over the middle for Neiman Lawrence. But Johdeem Jones picked it off and went 90 yards the other way. Jones fumbled it at the Bulls 3 but Makhel Smith-York fell on it in the end zone and put Raines on the scoreboard with a 7-6 lead.
The Bulls inched back in front three minutes later on Alex Lima’s third field goal of the game to put the Bulls back in front 9-7 and pushed that to two possessions on a 1-yard touchdown run by Calvin Russell early in the fourth quarter.
“We had to go through some bumps, some bruises, some long nights, some heartbreak,” Masline said. “But now we finally here and my testimony is going to be loud.”
They’ll once again be a contender to get back to Miami in 2026, although they’ll have to replace foundational players in the program.
Raines will graduate the all-time leading passer (TJ Cole) and receiver (Ziyon Butler) in program history. They’ll also have to replace multiyear starters like Tony Williams (linebacker), defensive tackle Brown, edge Cameron Washington and just about every offensive weapon.
There’s talent waiting in the wings. Quarterback Sa’mon Ellison-Morgan played a good bit this year for Cole as Raines built monstrous leads and plugged in reserves to soak up playing time.
The good news for 2026 and ’27 – Raines won’t have to worry about Miami Northwestern. The Bulls are slated to move up to Class 4A. On paper, Miami Central will likely enter 2026 on the short list as state championship favorite. Fort Lauderdale Cardinal Gibbons and Sarasota Booker would be in that conversation as well.
But for now, Raines stands alone at the top of the 3A landscape.
“Those 29 seniors wanted it, they wanted it real bad. They had a lot of team meetings their coaches weren’t allowed,” Masline said. “They dominated. They came out and stuck together through the entirety of the game. That’s a special group of young men that made history as one of the greatest teams that ever come out of Raines.”
The Vikings slugged it out from the start, holding Northwestern to a 24-yard field goal on the opening drive of the game and then stopping the Bulls on downs after Tony Williams got his hand on a fourth-down pass at the Raines 4 at the end of the quarter. The biggest play of the half was courtesy of Shareef Jackson. Travail Mathis ripped off a run from the Raines 10 and had a perfect path to the end zone. But Jackson knocked the ball loose and then recovered it in the end zone.